LB 695 
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Copy 1 



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THE LAW OF NATURE, 



THE LAW OP 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT: 



A NEW VIEW OF 



THE END OF JUVENILE CULTURE, 



E8PKCrALLY AS REGARDS THE FEMALE MIND. 



'' First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."— Mark iv. 28. 



BOSTON: 
CROSBY, NICHOLS k CO,, 

111 WASHINGTON STREET 
1855. 



'^t &m ^riiiripU nf tgknitinii 



THE LAW OF NATURE, 



THE LAW OP 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT: 



A NEW VIEW OF 



THE END OF JUVENILE CULTURE, 



B6PECIAL1.Y AS KEGAKDS THE FEMALE MIND. 



BY E^A. BEAMAN, 



PBINCIPAL OP A TOUNQ LADIES' SCHOOL, TEMPLE PLACE, BOSTON. 



'* First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."— Mark it. 



BOSTON: 
CROSBY, NICHOLS & CO., 

Ill WASHINGTON STREET. 
1854. 



^3<ff Oil 

^f tie 



^ 



JOHN FORD, PRINTER, 

OAM BRIDGSPOKT. 



.B4 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT, 



The position of many pupils in school is very un- 
comfortable, often painful and trying in the extreme. 
Sometimes this is their own fault ; sometimes, perhaps 
most frequently, it is the fault of the school. One 
principal cause of the trouble is, that all are subjected 
to the same rigid and unadapted system of instruction 
and discipline. Yet nothing is more various than are 
mental capacities, tastes and dispositions. 

A school should be a nurser?/ of mind, in the widest 
sense of the term ; and its leading object should be, first 
of all, to furnish aids and facilities for the most perfect 
health and groiuth of mind. Everything else should yield 
to this object. Certain it is, that that which is not 
adapted to promote mental health and growth, can have 
but comparatively little efficacy in promoting any other 
desirable object in education. 

But health and growth imply the existence of two 
things, namely, nourishment and action. This is the case 
with the body. But food that is nourishing, if adapted 
and suitable, is also palataUe. Action, if healthy and not 
excessive, is also agreeable, at least it is not painful. Every 
healthy being spontaneously seeks nourishment and ac- 
tion, even for the pleasure they afibrd. These things 



are a demand of nature. Growth is the result of a 
proper compHance with these conditions, which are a 
Iklw of organic development. But the mind^ as well as the 
body, is most essentially organic in its structure and in 
its wants ; and these same principles apply to it, in its 
every capacity. As the conditions of its proper health 
and growth, it first needs nourishment and the means of 
action. And, to be truly wholesome and promote any 
proper object in education, its nourishment must also be 
delightsome ; and its action, agreeable. These conditions 
are certainly our only assurance of mental health and 
consequently of growth. If these fail, therefore, all 
fails ; for no proper end in juvenile education can pros- 
per at the sacrifice of mental health. All ends are, as it 
were, bound up in this end. 

The true principle of mental culture then, is simply a 
change of ends ; it makes the proper health and groivth of 
mind, rather than qualification and the acquisition of 
knowledge, the first objects to be aimed at and secured in 
education. Let us, for a moment, look at these different 
objects in contrast with each other. 

It is customary to enquire, /r^^, what it is desirable for 
a pupil to know and to be capable of doing. That is, the 
great objects are Jmoiuledge and discij)line for the sake of 
knowledge or some supposed /i«/??r^ advantage. A course 
is therefore marked out in accommodation to these pur- 
poses. Every thing must look to some future qualifica- 
tion, or object to be attained. The first enquiry, 
therefore, is, what will best subserve this qualification, 
this accomplishment, &c. And progress is measured by 
the amount of acquisition for these objects. The next 
thing is to devise the means of securing these objects with 
the greatest possible dispatch. The lessons and instruc- 
tions must be so adapted, — and mark, this is the object 



of adaptation — as to enable the pupil to acquire as rap- 
idly as possible ; the capacity is measured, if measured 
at all, with this end in view. And when adaptation is 
made as perfect as it conveniently can be, the mind must 
" knuckle " to the task, whether there be any real fitness 
or adaptation, or not. The lesson must be acquired, cost 
what it may; for the future demands it. Peace and 
health of both body and mind may be sacrificed, if need 
fee ; the end justifies the means; the mind was made for 
knowledge, and not knowledge for mind. The body for 
food, and not food for the body. As if you were to feed 
yowv child according to the quality of food which, for some 
ulterior end, you wish it to learn to eat, and the number 
of barrels, bushels, pounds, &c., which you deem it ex- 
pedient to have consumed within a specific time. So 
many branches of knowledge, so many booksful, so 
much learning must, if possible, be stowed away in the 
intellectual warehouse within a certain limited period ; 
just as if the mind were an inert bag, indefinitely expan- 
sive indeed, but by dead elasticity, rather than by living 
organic grotvth. 

But, according to our new guide, the first question 
should be : What does the mind require as the conditions of its 
health and groiuth ? And our first aim should be to anstver 
these conditions. Every thing should bend to this object. 
Nor is there, in any of the other proper ends of edu- 
cation, anything inconsistent with this, if they are 
aimed at through this as of prior importance. It is on a 
similar principle that we feed our children, in obedience 
to the demands of bodily health and growth. If ^ve act 
Avisely, we always place these two things first, and never 
sacrifice them to any ulterior object whatever. As a prac- 
tical example of the operation of this principle, we do 
not first ask the question, in regard to any particular 



branch of study : can we so adapt it that it can he acquired? 
Nor do we make up onr mind that it must be acquired 
at any rate, and then adapt it as well as we can io facil- 
itate acquisition. But we first ask, is it so adapted, or can it 
be so adapted, as to answer the wants of the mind ? If 
so, we adopt it, if not we reject it till it is, or can be, so 
adapted. In all cases, we regard the organic nourish- 
ment and groivtli of the faculty, — as the faculty of 
language, of history, of arithmetic, of music, &c., — as of 
more importance than the furnishing or the qualifying 
of that faculty. And this is by far the most efiectual 
way of accomplishing every other pro|)er object in 
education ; and for two principal and very obvious 
reasons — first, because of a more perfect adaptation ; 
secondly, because the faculties will thus act in a more 
natural and vigorous, and therefore efiective manner. 
All the knowledge thus acquired will have its roots 
planted deep in the mind ; will, in fact, form a constitu- 
tional part of the mind : it will thus be as it were spon- 
taneous and eternal. 

But this cannot be the case with those lessons which, 
for laclz of adaptation to the mental wants and capacity, 
are only temporarily lodged in the memory by an un- 
natural, constrained, perhaps distorted and painful exer- 
cise of faculty. In such lessons there is no congeniality, 
no real nourishment ; they cannot, therefore, form a 
component part of the mind. It is perfectly futile, nay, 
it is worse than useless to attempt to croivd into a pupil's 
mind that which excites no natural, healthy mental ac- 
tion ; that which, for want of adaptation, is incapable of 
affording the pupil the proper delight of acquiring 
knowledge. It is futile, because knowledge thus acquir- 
ed, is not really acquired. It is worse than useless, both 
on account of the loss of time and the injurious habits 



thus induced upon the faculties. This latter evil is a 
much greater one than most persons are aware of. I 
have often found it a serious obstacle to a natural and 
proper use of the mental powers. 

It is plain that the adoption of this new principle — 
new I mean as a controlling principle in practice — though 
it would discard none of the important branches of in- 
struction and disciphne, would yet introduce such modi- 
fications in regard to adaptation as to make the real char- 
acter of education a very different thing from what it 
now is. It requires no argument to show that, as is our 
end or object, such will be our means; for our aim is 
always, if we act wisely, to adapt the means to the ends. 
It must make a most essential difference therefore to the 
child, whether we place the conditions of its health and 
growth directly before our minds as the first objects to 
be secured, and make its qualification for the future to 
be attained through these as the most effectual means ; or 
whether we aim directly at discipline and the acquisi- 
tion of knowledge for their own sakes and for future 
qualifications. For, while adopting the latter course, we 
forget, in our zeal to accomplish our purpose as speedily 
as possible, that the organic structure of the mind itself, is 
affected, for better or for worse, by whatever it does, or 
vainly attempts to do even ; we overlook its true naturCy 
its wants and its state. Thus we sacrifice our otherwise 
most potent instrument for the attainment even of our 
coveted objects; we place burdens upon the mind which 
it cannot carry by any proper natural action of the facul- 
ties ; its whole machinery works awkwardly ; the mo- 
tions of its cogs and wheels, if I may so speak, are 
retarded by unnatural friction ; and thus its energies be- 
come enfeebled and paralyzed when they should be 
strengthened and invigorated instead. Let it always be 



8 

understood that I am speaking of our objects or ends in 
relation to the child, not of its ends in study, nor of our 
own ends in respect to ourselves when we study. 

As one of the first happy results of making the con- 
ditions of health and growth our leading end in educa- 
tion, it would prevent the use of those extraneous stim- 
ulants and appeals to motives which are a cruel sacrifice 
of morals to intellect, and of the purer and nobler aspi- 
rations to base and grovelling ones ; it would lead to 
such perfect adaptation that there would be more of the 
stimulant and motive in the very nature of the lesson or 
task itself, in which they properly belong. Indeed there 
is, innate in the human mind, a love of action and a love 
of knowledge, that is, of that which, by its adaptation 
to state and capacity, is really knowledge. It would 
also save much worse than wasted time ; for the pupil 
would acquire more real growth, and more solid and 
permanent instruction, in four or ^\e hours a day, than 
in double that time spent in weariedly poring over les- 
sons under learned and unadapted systems. And ttiis 
would be so, because the action, thus excited, would be 
natural, healthy and vigorous, yet pleasurable action. 

As another desirable result, many pupils who, under 
the usual course, are accounted dull and stupid, would 
be wakened, as it were, into new life and energy under 
a better adapted course, and take their rank among the 
best. I speak from my own observation. School also 
would become delightful, and from a legitimate cause, 
even in many cases where it is now a burden. Again, a 
little done under the proper conditions of growth, is more 
effective than whole learned systems gone over with, un- 
der the influence of false stimulants and motives, and a 
forced, awkward and unduly constrained use of the fac- 
ulties. How little of the learning supposed to be ac- 



quired in childhood remains of practical use in after 
years ! Let every one examine his own mental treasure 
house and compare his practical possessions there, with 
the time and labor which they cost in their acquisition. 
But whatever has been gained, as a secondary ob- 
ject to the conditions of growth, has entered into the 
composition of the mind itself, and is that which 
gives it judgment and capacity. Think, ye who have 
spent weeks and months, perhaps years, in mouthing into 
a kind of artificial memory a dry epitome of history, a 
volume of condensed geographical statistics, a learned 
abridgment of grammar, &c., &c., — how many of those 
dainty morsels of knowledge have such form and place 
in the mind as to be of practical use to you ! Think, 
too, of the processes through which your mind passed 
in making the acquisition ; were they of such a character 
as to contribute to its real health, strength and growth ? 
Have not both mind and knowledge, in fact, been, in the 
main, sacrificed to vain efforts to acquire as knowledge 
what, for want of adaptation, was not such, and could 
not therefore be acquired. It is true your mind has 
received much useful discipline from some things that 
were in a measure adapted. But how much do you now 
really possess of that which you were compelled to try 
to learn as hioivledge, and for the sake of knowledge, or 
some future benefit ? How much, I mean, compared 
with the time and wearisome labor it cost you ? And 
then think, if you had had that only to do, which was 
capable of calling your faculties into natural and healthy 
and therefore agreeable action, how much more real 
bone and muscle of mind you would now possess, — 
how much more practical learning, — instead of the few 
disjointed facts that remain to you, as the tattered frag- 



10 

ments of old men's coats, which were attempted to be 
hung upon you in childhood and youth. 

The delicate organism of the juvenile mind can be sub- 
jected to the necessarily someiuhat constrained processes 
of education but a few hours a day, with profit, or even 
with impunity. There is even more difference between 
its susceptible texture and that of the adult mind, than 
between the body of the child and the hardened sinews 
of the man. We can with no more just reason "cram" 
the mind and overtax its energies, than we can treat the 
body in this way. All know that absolute fasting is 
better than surfeiting ; and no action, than over-action. 
A pupil may be forced, or enticed by stimulating appeals 
to pride, to self-love, &c., to perform seemingly herculean 
tasks of mental labor ; but if it does not answer the true 
conditions of groivth, what is the gain ? Such learning — 
and much of the school learning is like it — is as leaves 
and fruits artificially stuck upon trees, which have no 
^ real connection with the living fibre. All true learning 
is woven into the very substance of the mind, and is 
fastened there by some delight ; it extends its roots into 
a deep and rich soil ; it is a part of the mental life, and 
is ever fresh, nourishing and invigorating in its nature ; 
it is such as faculties unduly strained, wearied and 
exhausted, can never acquire. 

Infinitely better then, in all respects, are a few hours 
of mental instruction and discipline, in observance of the 
true conditions of health and growth, than many hours 
in violation of them. Yet many, perhaps most persons, 
under an infatuated notion that the engine of education 
cannot be worked too hard, will, for a long time to come, 
subject their children to the ''cramming^' process ; — to be 
crowded through high sounding and learned courses, 



11 

better adapted to the adult than to the juvenile mind ; 

and this at the expense of headaches and heartaches, 
and at a sacrifice of both mental and bodily health. Just 
as if, during the forming period of mind, the great end 
was to freight the vessel, rather than to give its walls 
capacity, strength and durability. But such expecta- 
tions will never be answered ; even the coveted ends of 
ambition and expediency will fail to be realized. Very 
little of the learning that is not acquired by a natural, 
free and easy action of the faculties, will remain to adorn 
the mind ; it will most of it flee away, after the excite- 
ments connected with the recitation are passed. Sacrifice 
the conditions of health and growth, and all that is really 
valuable is sacrificed. Better, far better is a vessel with 
strong, capacious walls, whose every timber, plank and 
nail have been woven into their proper places, and at 
the proper time, even with nothing in it, than a weak 
and rickety one creaking under a full but impradicaUe 
freight. But a mind formed under these conditions is 
far from being an empty vessel ; it is of all minds the 
most full and the most practical. The very means 
which give the mind the best and most perfect degree 
of growth, are precisely the means that most effectually 
store it with practical knowledge. 

It is desirable that, when the mind acts for the 
accomplishment of any object, it should act with energy 
and vigor ; and that it should learn to control and con- 
centrate its energies. It is this that gives the properly 
educated mind so much power and advantage over 
others of perhaps equal natural capacity. This power 
can be acquired only by habits of severe application ; and 
by application when the mind is in a healthy^ vigorous^ 
unexhausted state. Such a state seldom exists with 
those* who are ever weariedly dozing over unadapted 



12 



lessons, through several hours at home, in addition to 
the (to them) tedious hours of school. All pupils, and 
most especially girls, should form such habits of applica- 
tion as to be capable of getting through with all their 
mental lahovy in the usual school hours. If they are 
obliged to take their books home with them, it is a 
proper inference that either they are in fault or their 
teacher is in fault. But, in order to form these habits, 
it is necessary to begin young, and that their lessons 
should he in strict accordance with the principles which I have 
stated. I am satisfied that such application, when the 
habit has been formed and the lesson is properly adapt- 
ed, is delightful, however intense it may be. The mind 
in such states is drinking in a most delicious beverage, 
and the intellectual action suffuses the whole mental 
organism with a refreshing and grateful glow ; it is analo- 
gous, in its results, to agreeable physical exercise. But 
such states of application should not be continued after 
the usual school hours, however agreeable they may be. 
The practice of poring over books at home, when the 
mind has been in such vigorous tension in school, cannot 
be otherwise than injurious. The effect must be similar 
to that of overtaxing the energies of the body, whether 
with food, or with exercise. It blunts and stupefies the 
faculties, and destroys their healthy tone ; and what is 
acquired under such circumstances is more an appear- 
ance than a reality. In fact, it is worse than an appear- 
ance. It is a violation of organic laiv ; and this can never 
take place without positive injury. 

All sensible physicians will say, that every morsel of 
food we take beyond the proper demands of nature, is 
not simply useless; but that it helps to destroy the 
healthy action of the digestive organs; and this renders 
ineffective even what might otherwise have been nour- 



13 

ishing and invigorating ; nay, it frequently converts the 
whole mass into a nauseous and indigestible burden 
and paralyzes the whole physical system. So, also, a 
little overniction, a little straining of the muscular fibres 
a little too long continued tension, beyond a proper 
duration of healthful bodily exercise, does not sunply 
defecd our end, if health is our end; but produces an 
injury which must be followed by more or less incon- 
venience, if not sufiering ; and which it will take time 
and labor to repair. Thus over-domg, in any sense, is 
?mdoing; and thus a httle abuse, a little excess, of 
whatever kind, is not simply so much waste, so much 
iiTeparable loss ; but, worse than this, it destroys much 
positive good. The organic 7nind is not an exception to this 
law of nature ; but there is even more danger of abuse 
in regard to it, than in regard to the body. For, when 
we siu:feit and overtax the mind, the consequences are 
not so immediately and so strikingly perceptible to our 
obtuse senses, as when we treat the body in this way. 
The danger must therefore be much greater ; for these 
consequences are just as certain. When we violate a 
physical law of health, nature immediately speaks her 
complaint through a visible change in the features, as 
the dimmed eye, the faded cheek, the paled lip, &c., if 
not in racking pain ; unmistakable indications, at least, 
of a speed}^ retribution follow, as it were, upon the very 
heels of a breach of law. Xot so with the mind ; if we 
abuse its organism, the result is first manifested in some 
physical derangement which we very seldom ascribe to 
its true cause ; and so tardy is this manifestation even, 
and our dull and unwilling: senses are so slow to recoof- 
nize it, that the roots of disease often get too firm a hold 
to be eradicated, before we become sufficiently conscious 
of the injury done, and done both to mind and body. 



14 



It is not the one that labors the most hours, but the 
one that works the most vigorously when he works, 
though for a much shorter time, that really accomplishes 
the most. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton is said to have 
given the following history of his literary habits in a 
recent public lecture : — 

" Many persons seeing me so much engaged in active 
life, and as much about the world as if I had never been 
a student, have said to me— ^ When do you get the time 
to write all your books ? How on earth do you con- 
trive to do so much work?' I shall perhaps surprise 
you by the answer I make. The answer is this : ' I 
contrive to do so much, by never doing too much at a 
time.' A man, to get through work well, must not over- 
work himself ; for, if he do too much to-day, the reac- 
tion of fatigue will come, and he will be obliged to do 
too little to-morrow. Now, since I begun really and 
earnestly to study, which was not till I had left college 
and was actually in the world, I may, perhaps, say, that 
I have gone through as large a course of general reading 
as most men of my time. I have travelled much — I 
have mixed much in politics and in the various business 
of life, and, in addition to all this, I have published some- 
where above sixty volumes, some upon subjects requiring 
much special research. — And what time do you think as 
a general rule, I have devoted to study — to reading and 
writing ? Not more than three hours a day ; and when 
Parliament is sitting, not always that. But then, during 
those hours I have given my whole attention to what I 
was about." Many examples might be mentioned simi- 
lar to this. And will not the experience of almost every 
distinguished personage bear out the remark, that the 
most useful and the most brilliant results of intellectual 
labor, are those which have followed from taxing the 
mental energies but few rather than many hours a day? 



15 

But the period of childhood and youth is not a pro- 
ducing period; this is not the end of juvenile education; 
it is rather the period of development ; in fact it is most 
especially so. ' It is of comparatively little importance 
how much, or what, children learn — store away in the 
memor}^ — but of far greater moment that they have 
the very best means of groivtL It is not the time for 
gathering into barns and storehouses as an end; the 
fields are not yet white ready for the harvest. It is not 
even the period for the ripening of the grain ; but 
rather for the preparation of the soil, the sowing of the 
seed, and most especially for the formation and strength- 
ening of the fibres of the stalk. It is the period for the 
growth and development of the " hlade^ " The ear and 
the full corn in the ear " come at a later date ; and it 
would be well to remember that their quality, nay, and 
quantity also depend upon the previous healthy forma- 
tion of the blade. 

Why then should not the best possible conditions of 
health and growth be the leading and controlling aim 
and end in education ? And why this insane ambition 
to store away in our children's minds the ripe corn, as a 
ruling end, before the formation of the blossom, or even 
of the blade. But what else is the meaning of the 
youth's being compelled to spend so many hours a 
day — hours, too, after the faculties have become ex- 
hausted — in endeavors to acquire knowledge; perhaps in 
merely memorizing (to Mm) unmeaning and incompre- 
hensible phrases ? and doing this when the parents' and 
the teacher's leading aim and end are the laying up of 
knowledge ? The adult age is the time to acquire 
knowledge as an end, and the time to bear the fruits of 
it. The juvenile age is the time to form the vessel — to 
spin and weave the tender organic fibres of mind. 



16 



But, even if the great business of youth were mental 
acquisition, rather than growth or development, how 
we sacrifice our end to our folly, when we subject the 
delicate organism of our children's minds to a severer 
experience than that of hardened manhood! Bulwer^ 
whom few have surpassed in the products of intellect, 
mentally labored (and his reading was a part of this 
labor) but three hours a day. How many children, whose 
mental sinews are but just coming forth from the germ, 
are compelled, under the fashionable systems of educa- 
tion, to work twice and even thrice that number of 
hours! Nay, some young men and young ladies too, 
whose ambition is excited by what is often a deadly 
poison to their morals, will scarcely spare themselves 
time from their studies, for their meals and their regular 
hours of sleep ; much less for relaxation and invigorating 
exercise. Just as if they were filling a cart, instead of 
answering the wants of a forming mind ; — when, the 
more you get in, the more you carry away. We cer- 
tainly do not act according to the plainest dictates of 
common-sense, when we thus overtax our children's 
minds. Just as if they should be always studying^ be- 
cause we have nothing else for them to do ! Why not 
set them to eating to fill up a part of their waste time ? 

But it is our fault, if our children have nothing to do 
but to get lessons ; and a fault of no small magnitude it 
is too. They mud he occupied^ in one way or another, 
during all the hours not devoted to sleep ; and, if ive do 
not furnish them the means, there are those that will do 
this, and to our and their future, if not present, most 
bitter sorrow. They cannot help being occupied, even 
if they would. There is daily and hourly so much 
mental, as well as so much physical energy that mud 



1' 



come forth into act. It is for us to guide this energy 
and to afford it the proper means of expressing itself 
We cruelly wrong our children, and abuse our sacred 
trust, so far as we fail to provide them with the proper 
means of amusement — -which is essential to their well- 
being — and also of useful employment which is equally 
indispensable to their present as well as future happiness. 
A good mother will find enough for her daughters, at 
l6ast, to do at home, which will be of more service to 
them than getting lessons, if they have properly done 
their duty at school. And thus, school education and 
home education, the latter at no period of growth, 
the less important, may go hand in hand without 
interfering at all with each other ; they will rather aid 
each' other by producing a wholesome alternation of 
action and rest of the various faculties. 

School hours should be happy hours. It is essential 
to progress. And there is no good reason why they 
should not be so. And they should be happy hours, not 
because the pupils are indulged in disorderly habits, 
in wild fancies and in unreasonable desires ; not be- 
cause their self-love is flattered, their ambition excited, 
or they are permitted to have what is meant by the sig- 
nificant phrase of ''a good time;'' but because of their 
application. And all may, sooner or later, acquire a love 
for such application, if they are judiciously trained in a 
properly adapted course. A proper degree of study, 
under such a course, energizes and invigorates the mind, 
instead of exhausting and enfeebling the faculties ; the 
spirits are not depressed by weariness, and the hopeless- 
ness of the task ; but are preserved in their naturally 
elastic, buoyant state, which is as essential to the health 
of both body and mind and to progress in learning, as 
is the study itself 



18 



If it is proper for one to allude to his own experience^ 
or his course with his own children, for the sake of illus- 
tration, I may be permitted to say that I have adopted 
these views in practice. In fact, it was my experience 
and my desire to provide, daily and hourly^ in the best 
manner, for my pupils and my children, that suggested 
the changes of which I have spoken. These views 
therefore are not mere theory, but the result of more 
than twenty years of experience and' study. My school 
is conducted, as far as possible, on these principles. I 
have witnessed good practical results. I know that my 
pupils have been happy m their studies, when they 
have begun early to form proper haliU of application. 
This has frequently been remarked by strangers who 
have visited the school. Indeed, not unfrequently a 
young lady, who had acquired a distaste for school 
exercises, and the name of a dull scholar, when put 
upon a course better adapted to her capacity, has 
found even constant and vigorous application during 
the school hours so pleasing — her time has passed so 
agreeably — that she has remarked, she had "a very 
easy time," or "not much to do." This feeling arises 
from very contrast with her former experience, when 
her time was spent in dreading her lessons, or in list- 
lessly dreaming over them. Yet she was doing that 
which both nourished and invigorated her faculties, 
and was qualifying them for future action, which had 
been much less perfectly the case in her previous 
course. 

It is not my aim to make great scholars of my pupils 
or of my daughters, or to carry them along rapidly in 
their studies. A teacher, or a parent, is but an humble 
servant in rearing the temple of mind. God is the 
architect, and the plans and the progress are in His 



19 

hands. He calls upon us only to supply the materials, 
as He day by day indicates their want through the 
changing states of the mind^ which it is our province 
above all things to study. But, in providing these mate- 
rials, we are by no means to be blind to the future 
destiny and prospects of the child or pupil; we must be 
guided in a measure by these things; we must follow 
His providence; but in no case does He require or per- 
mit us to sacrifice a present want to an imagined future 
one. He asks us only to aid Him in building that jmrt 
of the temple now that is noiv in progress. This is the 
order of nature. This therefore will really make great 
scholars, if anything will. This will give a real progress 
without any false appearances. Our children may not 
''go over'' as many studies; may not "learn" (?) as many 
languages ; may not be able to talk so largely about 
what they have done, or what they are doing ; but they 
will be able to execute with vastly more efficiency. 
Their learning will not consist in the greatest number 
of soiled and dog-eared books, borrowed phrases, &c., &c.; 
but in more expanded and energized faculties, in 
strengthened and invigorated mental sinews, so to speak, 
and in a greater, power of practically using their facul- 
ties. And what a spectacle would be presented, if the 
intellectual stomach of a common school girl, who had 
been pressed through the fashionable course of a year's 
study, could be laid open ! I can think of nothing more 
appropriate as an illustration than the family rag-bag 
which is the " omnium gatherum " of bits and patches of 
every conceivable fabric, shape and color. You would 
behold an undigested and indigestible hotch-potch of 
broken fragments of Latin, German, French, Logic, 
Ehetoric, Grammar, Arithmetic, &c., &c., all huddled 
and mixed together in one impracticable mass. Now, 



20 



in a natural course of education, where everything is 
presented in order, in a properly adapted form, without 
crowding, all these things would be taken into the 
mental circulation, would become appi*opriated and 
assimilated as a part of the mind itself 

Children may begin the study of Latin, or of French, 
in short properly adapted lessons, as early as ten years 
of age, or even earlier. They may also attend to arith- 
metic, geography, drawing, &c., &c., in many respects in 
the usual way, but in no case when such study is seen 
not to answer the jjroper conditions of mental health and growth. 
The studies of my own children are limited to the 
school-room. And I am satisfied that this is the only 
way, according to the true philosophy of both mental 
and physical health, to give them that education which 
will realli/ fit them for the highest usefulness, happi- 
ness and respectability in society. Yet I feel that this 
course is hazardous to my reputation as a teacher, in a 
community whose prejudices seem to be so decidedly in 
favor of the daily satchel, and where the interest 
and progress of the pupil in school are so apt to be 
measured by the number of lessons to be studied at 
home. 

But I have good authority in favor of these views. 
I have spoken only of the mental health, and of that as 
an ohject and guide; medical writers would favor the 
same course, I believe, without exception, on the ground 
of physical health. Dr. Warren, in allusion to the abuses 
prevalent in fashionable education, says : 

" The importance of health to the regular exercise of the faculties of mind, as 
well as those of body, is very well understood in theory, and very generally 
neglected in practice. We are daily seen to accumulate the treasures of science 
on intellects, where the physical machinery is disordered and made useless by the 
burden. What is the value of a brilliant genius, or a highly cultivated mind, to a 
weak and laboring frame." 



21 

Butj as I have endeavored to show, a strict adherence 
to the laws of mental health — and by this we secure 
physical health also — is the only sure and effectual way 
of really producing "a brilliant genius, or a highly 
cultivated mind." We hazard all, when we risk health 
in any sense or manner. 

" When we regard the influence of a debilitated body on the more delicate sex, 
we find it not less distressing. A young female at the age of twelve or fourteen 
prjesents a beautiful figure, rosy cheeks, an airy step, and the fulness of life and 
happiness in every movement. As she advances, her vivacity naturally lessens ; 
but as if it would not be soon enough extinguished, it must be repressed by art. 
The lively motions of the body and limbs must be checked, the spirits must be 
restrained, and a sort of unnatural hypocrisy made to conceal every ingenuous 
movement. The activity of disposition is destroyed; by confinement she loses 
the inclination for exercise, and passes from her school to a state of listlessness at 

home, or to frivolous and useless amusements, or perhaps to fresh tasks The 

fruit, so fair without, is found decayed within, when scarcely matured. Next the 
roses of the countenance wither ; the limbs are feeble and tottering ; the vivacity 
is extinguished ; the whole system undermined, and ready to fall on the first 
shock. Of what use now are all the finery of accomplishment, and the rich stores 
of literature and of science, the fruits of so many years' labor ? 

" What I have now stated as the result of the mode of female education in use 
at present, is no picture of the imagination ; it is a fair representation of what we 
are compelled to encounter in almost daily experience." 

The following extracts are from Dr. Brigham's " Ee- 
marks on the Influence of Mental Cultivation on 
Health." 

" An improvement in female education has become very necessary in this 
country. It is lamentable, and in fact alarming, to find that the females of the 
United States, especially those in cities and those belonging to the most wealthy 
class, are in general more delicate and feeble than those in several countries in 
Europe. From my own observation I am confident that a far greater proportion 
of the females seen in the cities of this country, are pale, slender, and apparently 
unhealthy, than of those seen in the large towns of England and France. 
But there is no other country where the females receive so early and so much 
intellectual culture; and where so little attention is paid to their physical 
education." 

Again: "Little attention is given in the education of females, to the physio- 
logical differences of the sexes. Teachers seldom reflect that in them the nervous 
system naturally predominates ; that they are endowed with quicker sensibilities 
than men, and have imaginations far more active, that their emotions are more 
intense, and their senses alive to more delicate impressions; and therefore require 



22 



great attention ; lest this exquisite sensibility, which, when properly and naturally 
developed, constitutes the greatest excellence of women, should either become 
excessive by too strong excitement, or suppressed by misdirected education. If 
here was the proper place, it would be easy to show that efforts to make females 
excel in certain qualities of mind which in men are considered most desirable, — to 
make them as capable as men, of long continued attention to abstract truths, 
would be to act contrary to the dictates of nature as manifested by the organization, 
and would tend to suppress all those finer sensibilities, which render them in every 
thing that relates to sentiment and affection far superior to men. 

"But in general the mental peculiarities of the female mind are not regarded in 
education. Their intellectual powers are developed to the greatest degree, and 
thus their natural sensibility is changed or rendered excessive." 

It is no degradation to females that the qualities of 
their minds are not those of the male mind, any more 
than it is that their chins are not covered with a beard. 
They would be most unlovely, if they were different 
from what they are in this respect. No true man can 
love a woman with a masculine mind; and no true 
woman can love a man with a feminine mind. Both 
sexes are most lovely in each other's eyes, and most 
perfectly adapted to promote each other's happiness, just 
in proportion as they are, in all their qualities^ most 
distinctly male and female. They are different from 
each other throughout their entire mental^ as well as 
physical organization ; and the union of the two in one, 
is perfect in proportion to this difference. The two 
cannot be compared by the terms superior and inferior. 
They are equals, though not alike. The only terms of 
comparison are male and female. They are made for 
each other. And it takes both to make a perfect one, 
and each is equally an essential part. Justice to both, 
then, requires that they should be educated for each 
other; the male, as a male ; and the female, as a female. 
It is cruelly wronging the female, therefore, to attempt 
to develop in her mind the qualities of the male mind ; 
and you rob her future spouse, as well as herself — just in 
proportion as you succeed in doing this — of those things 



23 



that render a wife, a companion, a mother, most happy^ 
desirable and lovely. Is it not the part of folly then, nay^, 
of blind insanity, to push the two sexes, during the tender 
forming years of childhood and youth through the same 
rigid and unyielding course of education. Think of a 
college course for females ! As well might we educate 
boys and young men to fill the relations in life of 
female gentleness, affection and sensibility. 

' It is the province of true education to provide the 
means of developing the mind according to its organic germi- 
nal structure. The sex exists in the germ. The mind is 
horn either male or female ; and whether it be the one 
or the other, it is so in all its qualities. And we might 
as well attempt to develop the apple seed into a pear- 
tree, as the female germ into a masculine mind. Any 
effort, therefore, to give the female mind characteristics 
that do not naturally belong to it, is not only vain, — 
would that this' were all! — but is a cruel violation of 
the laws of health and growth; it is an attempt to 
untwist the living fibres and pervert them to unnatural 
purposes. If the female mind acts, it must act as a 
female mind ; it must seek and appropriate nourishment 
as a female mind, and must grow as a female mind ; it 
cannot do otherwise, any more than an apple tree can 
appropriate nourishment and grow as an elm. Child- 
ren and youth are dependent upon others for the 
means of such nourishment and growth. If these are not 
supplied, the true qualities of the mind are not devel- 
oped, but remain in infantile feebleness. The healthy 
balance of the mind is destroyed, and the faculties are 
marred and distorted. It is therefore cruelly depriving 
the female of her rights, to attempt to educate her like 
the male. Let her be educated according to the organic 
structure^ nature and destiny of her mind. Let her true 



24 



character and the real wants of her mind for the means 
of nourishment and growth be oiir basis and guide in 
education. That is^ let us observe strictly the conditions 
of health and growth, rather than make some ulterior 
object our aim and law, and we may then have reason to 
hope that all will be well. We shall then educate females 
as females and for the sphere of females, and shall not 
sacrifice them, in the bloom and loveliness of youth, on 
the altar of foolish and vain ambition, or to ignorg^nt and 
misguided affection. We shall then do the best that can 
be done, to preserve, in integrity, all the attributes and 
peculiar qualities of the female character, and to give 
them their proper means of growth. 

Let it not be inferred, from what has been said, that 
females are not to drink at the same fountains of knowl- 
edge at which males drink ; that they are to be deprived 
of any of the branches that are adapted and congenial 
to their nature. Very far from it. They must study 
language, science, philosophy, art, religion, &c., sometuhat 
as males, yet essentially as females. They, as well 
as males, must be made acquainted with the laws of their 
structure, the laws of society, the laws of Nature and 
the laws of God. And such studies, if adapted, will be 
delightful to them. But the different sexes will naturally 
study these things in a different manner, in different 
proportions and to a different extent. For many things 
are required to properly nourish and develop the 
female mind, that the male mind does not need and 
could not appropriate ; and vice versa. Females will 
therefore excel in one thing, and males in another. In 
fact, they will derive different instruction from the same 
lesson, and often manifest equal excellence, though of a 
different kind. 

The structure of the female mind is more delicate and 



25 

more susceptible ; it cannot, therefore, either with profit 
or safety, be kept in that constant, continued and severe 
tension of which the male is capable. It requires a 
greater variety and more frequent change. 

But I would not fail to express my dissent from the 
practice of many parents who set aside, as it were, a 
certain number of years for the technical education of 
their daughters, and, during that, period, drive the 
e'ducational engine to its utmost capacity. Just as if a 
certain portion of human existence must be sacrificed to 
pain, drudgery, and privation of various kinds, for the 
sake of being qualified for a certain other portion. The 
Divine Providence requires no such sacrifice ; but would 
have the measure of evert/ period of life full of all the 
education, all the enjoyments and all the usefulness that 
properli/ belong to that period. And this is the Lord's way 
of qualifying for the future. According to the Divine 
Economy, we are never required to sacrifice to-day to 
to-morrow. If we obey His commandments, and observe 
His laws, each day, each stage of existence has its 
allotted pleasures as well as duties, and both are at all 
times essential to a perfect and healthy growth. 

It is owing to one of the abuses of which I complain, 
arising from the want of a proper adaptation, that 
teachers are so frequently led to say to their pupils: 
submit to this drudgery, perform this unadapted and 
painful task to-day, and to-morrow's lessons will be all 
the easier and all the pleasanter for it. This is like 
" robbing Peter to pay Paul." We have no right to place 
the child in such a dilemma ; and we should not feel 
obliged to do so, if we were always led by the true ends 
of education ; for this is a sacrifice of those ends. Each 
day, each moment of life should have its due. The 
child' should be deprived of nothing that its present 
4 



26 

state requires ; and should be subjected to no task 
which its present capacity is not equal to, by a natural 
exercise of its faculties, however loud may be the imag- 
ined calls of to-morrow for aid. I would say, give the 
study up at once ; nay, abandon it forever, if need be, 
rather than sacrifice anything that properly belongs to 
the existence of to-day. For we certainly sacrifice the 
future well-being, just in proportion as we, in any sense, 
sacrifice what belongs to the present ; for the good of 
the future is built upon the good of the present. These 
views do not preclude any properly adapted labor, or 
task, however severely it may tax the natural and orderly 
action of the faculties; provided such action is not 
excessive. 

It is thought by some that, during the period of school 
education, every thing, or nearly every thing must give 
place to that. This is a great mistake. There are many 
things in the family relations, and in social life that are 
quite as essential to the proper formation of the charac- 
ter of the juvenile portion of human being as school 
lessons. The former should not interfere with the 
latter, nor the latter with the former. The faculties of 
the mind, like the branches of a tree, should all be 
growing at once ; it is not in accordance with the laws 
of organic life to push forward a part and then go back 
and bring the others forward. I have no sympathy 
with that view or feeling that would deprive a young 
lady of any proper degree of social intercourse, or of 
cultivation of the society of the other sex, because of her 
school ; neither would I say a word to encourage an 
excess of either ; abuse is bad on either side. It is a 
most unnatural state of society that requires, or permits 
the separation of boys and girls in their school educa- 
tion. They are designed by nature to grow up together, 



27 



and to be formed by each other's influence. The relation 
of brother and sister is not suflicient ; children require 
society beyond the family circle. But where this 
relation does not exist ; where a girl or a boy grows up 
entirely without the influence of the opposite sex, it 
is the oddest of created beings. One of the most 
essential parts of the character is left in the germ for 
want of the proper means of growth. Such beings 
are therefore most lamentably deficient in that which 
gives human society one of its sweetest charms. 

And there is music, and needle-work, and many 
seemingly unimportant little domestic affairs, which are 
nevertheless much more essential to sound mental health 
and growth, yea, and to happiness too, and this daily, 
than so much French and German ; and not only this, 
but all these things are at the same time aiding in 
qualifying the female mind for her sphere in life. And 
which qualifications does the sensible young man prize 
most highly in a candidate for partnership for life, those 
acquired from school books, or from the domestic duties 
and the social relations ? Of course, neither should be 
neglected. And neither should be sacrificed to the 
other. Let each have its place. And then each, instead 
of interfering, will contribute to the highest perfection 
of the other. But I would be understood to regard 
the hours of the school room, or an equivalent portion 
of time, as suf&cient for school education. And I have 
arrived at this conclusion, on the ground of mental 
health and physical health, as well as of the led future 
qualification. This is the true way to have a sound mind 
in a sound body; and so to live as, in the highest 
degree, to fulfill all the conditions of the present, and 
be, at the same time, in the most perfect manner qualify- 
ing for the future. 



28 



I have long been convinced that^ if this principle, 
naftiely, health, (and all is embraced in that one word,) 
were adopted as a controlling ohjed, our children would 
become more perfectly educated in everi/ sense of the 
word ; that they would better fulfill the conditions of their 
present being, and would be very much better qualified for 
their place in future society ; for everi/ faculty would thus 
receive its proper means of nourishment and growth ; 
and none would be surfeited or overtaxed. And phys- 
ical health would not be offered up a willing sacrifice 
to the Moloch of pride and doting ambition. The virgin 
might wear her roses into womanhood, and the young 
man preserve his energy ; insane hospitals would be rob- 
bed of many of their tenants, and the grave of a large 
portion of its premature occupants. 

A school conducted on these principles, must neces- 
sarily be limited in its numbers. The teachers must be 
living teachers; and mind^ more than books, must be their 
study, and their constant^ daily study. No labor-saving 
machinery can be adopted. The teacher must be more 
than an automaton, (wound up for action at some pre- 
vious day, perhaps in college,) and his pupils more than 
parrots. Parents must learn to be better satisfied with a 
little real progress, than with much false appearance of 
learning; — to be in the habit of thinking and of asking, 
not hoiv much or hoiv rapidly their children are acquiring^ 
but whether their faculties are healthily, happily, indus- 
triously and vigorously occupied ; not hoiv much they are 
doing ^ but ivhat they are doing and how they are doing it; 
and most especially what is their state of mind when oc- 
cupied. Then we may hope for a change which will be a 
real improvement. But, if parents are apprehensive that 
their children do not receive the greatest possible advan- 
tage from their school, because it does not subdue the 



29 



buoyancy and elasticity of their spirits and oppress them 
with hard lessons at home, or because they do not study 
this branch and that, which are supposed to be fashionable 
or necessary to some future accomplishment — teachers 
must, in a measure, accommodate themselves to the pre- 
judices of their patrons, and sometimes submit to embar- 
rassments which interfere with what they conceive to be 
the highest good of the pupil. Parents are often not 
satisfied with the slow progress o^ growth, whose processes 
cannot be hurried; they want to see, forthwith, some 
tangible results ; as they would count the volumes of an 
increasing library. And yet the greatest benefits of a 
proper course of mental culture, are out of sight ; they 
consist of those internal organic changes which are rather 
a development of moral and intellectual strength and capa- 
city, than acquired learning. It is not till moral and in- 
tellectual capacity, which is formed only by the properly 
adapted means of nourishment and action, rather than 
accumulated knowledge and accomplishment, become the 
leading aim and end, and parents learn to appreciate this, 
and judge rightly concerning it, that we shall witness those 
changes which are most desirable to be introduced in 
school education. It is a most discouraging fact — dis- 
couraging to him who would zealously study out the 
true principles of the art of education, and be faithful to 
those principles in his calling — that parents often seek 
the merely fashionable, the conventional, the external, 
in preference to what the true interests of education de- 
mand ; and that they frequently give their confidence 
and their encouragement to mere tyros — where such 
superficial objects can be most perfectly secured — 
rather than to those of long and faithful experience. 

• But it seems necessary to guard against misconstruc- 
tion of the views that have been presented. I would 



30 



not be understood as advocating any loose system of 
education. I have no sympathy with the idea that 
would leave the young to do what and as they please ; 
very far from it. Their tastes and inclinations are fre- 
quently in a very perverted state ; and, even if they 
were not so, the rational principle of their mind is not de- 
veloped. They know not how wisely to choose for, or 
to guide, themselves. Of the various things that are 
properly adapted to their capacity both to learn and to 
do, some are capable of affording them more pleasure 
than others ; and they are quite likely to avoid the less 
agreeable as dbsolidely distasteful and repulsive, when the 
question is really only one of degree of pleasure — and 
when too the less agreeable is the more necessary and 
useful. If left to themselves, the young and inconsiderate 
will of course choose those things which they love lest^ 
whether in mental or in physical action. It is for this 
reason that they must often be compelled to do what we 
think hest, rather than what they choose. Indeed com- 
pulsion is an instrument of most constant and important 
use in our own, as well as in our children's develop- 
ment. We are often obliged to compel ourselves to do 
the less agreeable of two things ; and we do it in obedi- 
ence to our reason, to law, or to expediency. We must 
treat our children in this respect as we treat ourselves; 
for we are obliged to reason and to make laws for them. 
Their judgment is not yet formed ; and they are incapa- 
ble, but in a very imperfect degree, of compelling them- 
selves to do what is, on the whole, best to be done. Pu- 
pils often require compulsion, in one form or another, to 
make them get their lessons — however well adapted 
these may be — because of a natural repugnance, which 
we all feel, at being subjected to any rules, or restraints 
upon liberty. When, then, we have satisfied ourselves 



31 

that what we think it best for our children to do is 
^properly adapted to their capacity^ we should insist, and 
most perse veringly insist upon their doing* it, and doing 
it with promptness and energy. We should never yield 
to any plea of disinclination or of distaste. They must 
obey. They must perform the task. And they will 
find their reward certainly in the higher act of obedi- 
ence, and in the act of performance also ; — unless we 
have made a mistake in regard to adaptation. For we 
are so organized by our Creator, that there is always a 
rewarding pleasure in a proper^ healthy action of our fac- 
ulties. 

But, to compel them to do ivhat is not adapted, is a very 
different thing. This is an unpardonable wrong. It is 
a cruel abuse of our relation to our children, or our 
pupils. It is what we have no right to do, whatever 
may be our motive or end, and however great the imag- 
ined future advantage to be gained by it. Another 
abuse of compulsion arises from yoking the slow scholar 
with the quick one, and then driving both up to the ex- 
tent of speed of the latter; just as if we were to harness 
the heavy, clumsy draught horse beside the light and 
fleet coach horse, and expect the same duty from the 
two. 

Yet I would not be understood as encouraging, in any 
degree, a tame and spiritless application. On the con- 
trary it is very important that the young ^ho\Adi form 
the habit, not only of doing thoroughly and well what 
they do, but of working with vigor and energy while 
they work. This is indispensable, and especially so, 
when all the school labor is performed in the usual school 
hours, which will -be the case, particularly with girls, in 
proportion as we are guided by the true philosophy both 
of mental and bodily health and mental acqukement. 



32 



Again, we have no right, in any sense, to sacrifice any 
of the present conditions of life, in regard to our child- 
ren, to a supposed future advantage. The laws of de- 
velopment forbid this. The true interests of the future 
also forbid it. If we see fit to force ourselves through a 
course of weeks, months, or years of unadapted and un- 
rewarding "Jn^^/^^^y," for the sake of an imagined future 
gain, it may be well perhaps for us to do so. But to 
treat those in this way whom Providence has commit- 
ted to our care, as He has our children, for the daily 
means of human growth, is an outrage upon our trust. Let 
the future enlighten the present, but never control it ; at 
least no farther than the idea of a completed temple 
controls the workmanship of the successively forming 
parts. Each part should be formed in perfection for its 
own sake as a part ; the foundation, as a foundation ; a 
wall, as a wall, &c. There can be no greater folly than 
an attempt to develop the man in the child. Let each 
stage of human being be formed in perfection, as it 
comes successively to be present. The best that we can 
do towards building the man, is, in childhood, to pro- 
vide the means of forming a perfect child. 



